I'm back from Essen and after a good nights sleep (the first for a while) I thought I'd give you my first impression of some of the new releases.

Samurai

The aim is to capture the Helmet(?), Buddha and Rice field pieces in the cities by laying tiles (from a hand of five) with influence points adjacent to them. When a city is surrounded the pieces are given to the player(s) with the most influence of each type. Samurai tiles can influence any pieces and there are other special tiles for ships, riders etc. Normal play is one tile a turn but you can play as many specials as you like in one go. Up to 4 players, by Reiner Knizia, about 45 mins to 1 hour. Excellent game, easy to learn and as you expect with Reiner's games a deceptively simple scoring system. You must have a majority in one of the three pieces to win, but only the other pieces count for your score.

El Caballero

A cross between El Grande, Entdecker and Siedler Card Game. Each turn a player lays a land tile to create a map, then can place his Caballeros adjacent to the map to try to control regions of connected land or sea tiles. The El Grande cards are used to determine how many Caballeros each player gets in his home court, and 2 player Settlers card game type cards (which can be rotated) are used to show how many Caballeros are on the map, scoring is at end of 4th and 7th turns. There are also Ship and Castle pieces and a longer variant is included in the box. More complex than Samurai, it takes a little while before you realize what you are trying to achieve, playing time about 1.5 hours.

Samarkand

Trading game of collecting and selling cards of resources set in the desert. The map consists of Camps which hold stores of cards, where you must pay a card to visit but then may swap cards from your hand with cards at the camp, Oases where you can buy one or four ards for cash, and Markets where you can sell your hard earned cards for money with the bigger the set the more they are worth, each market buying two types of resource only. A player can either move one space following the red arrows on the map with the option to skip Camp after paying a gift, or pay to roll the die and move exactly the distance rolled again following the arrows. Simple rules and fun but frustrating to play as you home in on the cards you want but find you have given out so many gifts you can't afford to trade for them, or someone else rolls the dice and gets there first. By Sid Sackson,plays around 45 mins to 1 hour.

Visjes

Each player has two boats with which they are trying to trawl for three different kinds of fish on a hex board covered with fish, sharks, viruses(?) and waves. Each turn a boat can turn one hexside and move either one space, or if there are fish of the right type in front of the boat move in a straight line collecting all the fish of that type. Then the virus moves 1 hex infecting any fish it hits which will spread in later turns, the shark moves up to two then eats as many fish as it can in a straight line, and the wave moves three, picking up fish it finds and depositing them elsewhere on the map in the next turn. The fish then breed, a new fish being placed next to each pair of similar fish. Each player then pays one fish for each of his boats and can buy a new boat which costs 8 fish, first to a certain number of boats depending on the number of players wins the game. A game where you can plan everything that will happen, except what your opponents will do. It's great fun to realize that the fish you are looking for will not breed because you have over fished them, or a wave has taken some away. The fish on the map are represented by shells which looks great.

Medieval Merchants

Each player is trying to get victory points by controlling cities on the map. Each city is worth from 1-8 VPs which s also the number of branches which can be placed there. The player with the most branches in each city wins the VPs. Unfortunately as branches are placed into cities the income from that city goes down, and you need money to build branches in new cities, each route between cities having a different cost on it. Another simple to learn but challenging game for 2-6 but more works better than less , in our second game four of us ended up with less than three VPs covering us all.

Golden Goal

This is a lightweight dice and card game about football (soccer to the heathens) designed to be played as a league. There are 8 dice with a ball on one face of each. The home player rolls the dice for the first half of the match with each ball counting as a goal scored. There are offensive and defensive cards which both players can play e.g. Automatic goal or superb keeper. Then the away player rolls the remaining dice for his goals. Then the home player rolls the dice for the second half etc.The winner gets to take two more cards from the deck and the loser one. Although it sounds very simple it is actually a very atmospheric game and especially if, as we did, you make up a commentary as you go along it's great fun. 2 minutes per match with a full league depending on the number of players.

International Trading Company

If your familiar with previous Fanfor games you will know that they are fairly heavily dice based with decisions as to how you will use the dice. ITC is no exception and is a business game run through dice. Every turn each player receives one action card which can be held until required then can choose to roll 2 of the 3 available dice, 1 controls transport of cargoes, 1 controls opening new branches in each continent to sell cargoes, and 1 allows the player to receive new cargoes and do a mixture of the first 2. After rolling the 2 chosen dice the player selects 1 of them to use. At first in the game the players will be trying to transport as many cargoes to various markets as they can to receive income, but as the cargoes start to build up at each continent they will have to build up branches to sell them off at the most advantageous prices. Now and again part of a cargo will fall of the back off the lorry (ship?) and end up in the black market which only one player can control. An interesting range of choices to be made each turn with the usual feeling of not doing everything you wish to do. The game ends when one player gets 200,000 Dollars which should take around 3 hours although this can be varied for a longer or shorter game.

Auf Trab im Sulkydrom

This is a race game about Trotting, those little chariot like pony and traps where you are not allowed to gallop. Movement of pieces is controlled by two types of cards, Position cards, where the current position on the track is used to determine how many spaces you can move, and Name cards where each horse is named and it's movement noted. The cards are dealt evenly to each player and then have to be placed in two stacks, with the order determined by the player. This is makes it quite important to memorize the cards as you will want to play your good position cards at just the right time. Each player also has a Gallop piece - played on another player to stop him moving this turn - and a bonus piece which gives to two extra movement. Movement around the oval track is fairly standard, although you can only move sideways after moving forward which can lead to some nasty traps being sprung when another player is blocked in. The game is beautifully constructed in a wooden box with 3d card pieces.

Bamboleo

This is a balancing game from Zoch, the people who brought you Bausack and Sac Noir (Bausack with black and red bits) A selection of various shaped wooden bits is placed on a round board which then is balanced on top of a wooden tower topped off with a cork ball. Each player then has to remove the bits without the board toppling over. I have enough difficulty just getting the board to balance in the first place but when you do the game is great fun as the cork ball gives enough friction to allow the board to achieve some amazing angles without going over. Another beautifully made game and of course it can be combined with Baausack for even more variations.

Zopp

Another Zoch game, this is soccer Carrom style. The board consists of a piece of polished wood the relative dimensions of a football pitch with foam lined walls and a goal at either end. Each team comprises three wooden disks with a small red disk for the goal. The object of the game is to get the ball in the opponents goal by flicking your players with a small stick, but if you hit an opponents player first he gets a free kick (3 free flicks). Simple idea but great execution. The smoothness of the pieces on the board is incredible, especially if you use some of the special powder provided, even just a very light dusting sends the pieces sliding for miles.

Following on from the reviews of the games I played at Essen, here are some I didn't play (and one I did that isn't available yet)

Daumen Drauf

This is a trick taking game about snakes where you get points for collecting snakes without fangs, but lose points for collecting them with fangs. Each player displays a snake with the head of the snake, and therefore whether it has fangs or not, covered by their thumb. The next player can pass, or play a higher card of the same colour, or any card of a different colour (there are three colours with 2 cards of 1-9 in each). The second colour always trumps the first, and the third trumps the second. Last card played wins the trick. 2-7 players, 10 minutes plus depending on number of hands played.

Hornochsen

A variant on Six Nimmt, always a popular filler.

La Isla Bohnita

Expansion for Bohnanza (which is required), adds boats and pirates.

Nanuuk!

Each player is an Eskimo harpooning whales etc. and trying to get his booty back to his igloo while the ice breaks up.

Schlangennest

Tile laying game about getting the longest snake, 2-4 players.

Ursuppe Expansion

Extra genes plus bits for a 5th and 6th player.

Europa

Lavishly produced game about producing the European Union from the ashes of WW2. As suits the subject matter it is produced in German, French, Italian and English versions if I remember correctly.

Friesematenten

A collectible card game from the man with the green hair. But with no rarities and playable out of the box this isn't going to break the bank.

Alexander the Great & Cheops

A historical expansion for Settlers with two scenarios, Alex the Great and Cheops, which was released last year as just a map.

Kahuna

Prettied up version of Arabini-Ikibiti.

1848

Very pretty card game of the German Revolution.

Keydom

One of the hits of the show. Richard only arrived at the stand at about 11am Thursday and he had sold all 200 copies he had by mid afternoon. Very well produced, looks good to play, there are already some reviews on the net.

Ra

This is the game which I played but which will not be available till Nuremberg. Designed by Reiner Knizia it's a tile collecting game with an Ancient Egyptian theme. Each player turns up a tile and adds it to the current set, or may instead decide to auction the set which can consist of Gods, Pharaohs, Civilisations, Monuments etc. Each of the types of tile gives points at the end of each round and/or at the end of the game. Occasionally a Ra tile will be turned up which forces an auction, and moves the game on towards the end of the round. Although this was a pre-production version the graphics were superb. Imagine what an Egyptian themed game could look like, well this was better. More cerebral than Samurai, it was closer to E&T in depth. I'm looking forward to the release of this one.